For the politics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see J. L. I. Fennell, Ivan the Great of Moscow (1963), Andrei Pavlov and Maureen Perrie, Ivan the Terrible (2003), the old but still useful S. P. Platonov, The Time of Troubles (1970), Philip Longworth, Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias (1984), and Lindsey Hughes, Sophia: Regent of Russia 1657–1704 (1990). Isolde Thyret, Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia (2001) provides a new perspective on the ruling dynasty. The evolution of the church and religion is covered mainly in scholarly monographs such as Paul Bushkovitch, Religion and Society in Russia: the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (1992) and Paul Meyendorff, Russia, Ritual and Reform: the Liturgical Reforms of Nikon in the Seventeenth Century (1991). Ioann Shusherin’s seventeenth century account of Patriarch Nikon’s life has been translated as From Peasant to Patriarch, Kevin Kain and Katia Levintova, translators (2007) and see Archpriest Avvakum, the Life Written by Himself, trans. Kenneth Brostrom (1979). THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
The political and cultural history of the era of Peter the Great and the eighteenth century are well covered. For Peter the best all around study remains Reinhard Wittram, Peter der Grosse, Czar und Kaiser (1964). More modern treatments are Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (1998) and Paul Bushkovitch, Peter the Great 1671–1725: the Struggle for Power (2001). A shorter version exists for both: Hughes’ Peter the Great: a Biography (2002) and Bushkovitch, Peter the Great (2001). The empresses between Peter and Catherine have not attracted much attention, but see Evgenii Anisimov, Empress Elizabeth: Her Reign and Her Russia 1741–1761, trans. John T. Alexander (1995); and Five Empresses, trans. Kathleen Carol (2004). Isabel de Madariaga’s Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (1981) and John T. Alexander, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (1989) are lively accounts of the empress and her court while Simon Sebag Montefiore’s massive Prince of Princes: the Life of Potemkin (2000) describes a crucial figure. The correspondence of Catherine and Potemkin has been translated as Love and Conquest: Personal Correspondence of Catherine the Great and Grigory Potemkin, trans. Douglas Smith (2004). For court politics and other events see David L. Ransel, The Politics of Catherinian Russia: the Panin Party (1975) and John T. Alexander, Emperor of the Cossacks; Pugachev and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773–1775 (1973). Influential attempts to analyze the Russian state are Marc Raeff, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russa 1600–1800 (1983) and John P. LeDonne, Absolutism and Ruling Class: the Formation of the Russian Political Order 1700–1825 (1991). Social history is less well represented in English but see Michelle Marrese, A Woman’s Kingdom: Noblewomen and the Control of Property in Russia 1700–1861 (2002) and David Ransel, A Russian Merchant’s Tale: the Life and Adventures of Ivan Alekseevich Tolchenov, Based on His Diary (2009). Important studies of foreign policy and empire include Jerzy Lukowski, The Partitions of Poland 1772, 1793, 1795 (1999); Alan W Fisher, The Russian Annexation of Crimea 1772–1783 (1970); and Michael Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Meet: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads 1600–1772 (1992).
In the eighteenth century Russia entered the world of European culture and the Enlightenment. James Cracraft chronicles Peter’s time in The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture (1988), The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery (1997), and The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture (2004). The best introductions to Russian culture from Peter to 1800 are Marina Ritzarev, Eighteenth Century Russian Music (2006); W Gareth Jones, Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia (1984); Denis Fonvizin, Dramatic Works, trans. Marvin Kantor (1974) and Political and Legal Writings, trans. Walter Gleason (1985); and Alexander Radishchev, Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, trans. Leo Wiener (1966).
For the time of Paul and Alexander I Roderick E. McGrew, Paul I of Russia 1754–1801 (1992) attempts to defend Paul’s reputation, while Janet M. Hartley, Alexander I (1994) is briefer and more balanced. Russia’s wars are well handled in Norman E Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean 1797–1807 (1970) and Dominic Lieven’s magisterial Russia against Napoleon: the Battle for Europe 1807 to 1814 (2009). For the internal politics of the empire in the first half of the nineteenth century see Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia 1772–1839 (2d ed., 1969); W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (1989). On the Decembrist revolt a now rather old introduction is Anatole G. Mazour, First Russian Revolution, 1825: the Decembrist Movement: its Origins, Development, and Significance (1967), while more modern treatments of the main figures include Patrick O’Meara, K F Ryleev: a Political Biography of the Decembrist Poet (1984); Glynn Barratt, Rebel on the Bridge: a Life of the Decembrist Baron Andrey Rozen 1800–1884 (1975); and Christine Sutherland, Princess of Siberia: the Story of Maria Volkonsky and the Decembrist Exiles (1984). The debates inside the Russian intelligentsia from 1825 to the Crimean War are reflected in Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy: the History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth Century Russian Thought, trans. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka (1975) and E. H. Carr, The Romantic Exiles (1933). The best portrait of the era is Alexander Herzen’s autobiography, My Past and Thoughts, trans. Constance Garnett, 4 vols. (1968). The evolution of thought in government circles is the theme of Cynthia Whittaker, The Origins of Modern Russian Education: an Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov 1786–1855 (1984) and W Bruce Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform: Russia’s Enlightened Bureaucrats 1825–1861 (1986). FROM THE GREAT REFORMS TO 1917
For the reform era W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (1990) provides an introduction. Unfortunately there is no full biography of Alexander II or any other major figure of the government during his reign. The revolutionary movement during the same period has attracted more attention. Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What is To Be Done?, trans. Michael R. Katz (1989) influenced a whole generation, for which see Irina Paperno, Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior (1988). Another important influence was Herzen, whose writings in translation are Alexander Herzen, From the Other Shore and The Russian People and Socialism, trans. Moura Budberg and Richard Wollheim (1979). A brilliant portrait of the age is Ivan Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons. The fullest account of the movement is Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia, trans. Francis Haskell (1960).